Today in Soap Opera History (January 28)

1972: On ANOTHER WORLD, Ada (Constance Ford) promised Rachel (Margie Impert) she wouldn't do anything foolish with what Ernie left her. Impert did not work out in the role of Rachel, and Paul Rauch brought Robin Strasser back to the soap for four months until Victoria Wyndham was hired. Read our interview with Robin Strasser here where she recalls her experience working with Constance Ford.

1980: On AS THE WORLD TURNS, Barbara (Colleen Zenk) confessed to Tom (Tom Tammi) that she had a son with another man a few years earlier and gave him to Claudia to raise. Watch it below:

1980: On THE EDGE OF NIGHT, surgery was Margo's only hope.

1980:PEOPLE magazine published a story about SEARCH FOR TOMORROW consultant Dr. Anthony Moulton:

As the soap opera's medical adviser for the past five years, Moulton, 34, is on call to explain the possible dramatic repercussions of various diseases. He once wrote a 15-page report to the show's producers on the aftereffects of a mastectomy. Recently they wanted to know what complications could strike a little girl with pneumonia so that a nurse could save the child's life. When Moulton's advice is needed right on the set, which happens every three months or so, he has gone on camera himself (at union scale of $250 a day).

He often portrays an anesthesiologist or junior surgeon, leaving the medical heroics to the series stars. Once Moulton's hands were filmed sewing up an incision (actually a surgical cap) while an actor portrayed intense concentration for facial closeups. "The first few times on camera," allows Moulton, "I was much more nervous trying to fake an operation than I am doing the real thing."

1985: On SANTA BARBARA, Veronica was in grave danger from Peter.

1993: On DAYS OF OUR LIVES, Doug and Julie moved to Switzerland.

2004: John Clarke aired for the final time in DAYS OF OUR LIVES as Mickey Horton.

4 comments:

This was the first month of the Dobsons when the James Stenbeck backstory came into play. Barbara is confessing to Tom about Paul. In a couple of weeks James first appears. A few months later, Barbara left Tom at the altar to be with James.

Barbara/Colleen Zenk has been one of the, if not THE most, consistently fashionably forward characters in the history of Daytime drama! I cannot remember any other character on a Daytime soap that had such stylish, cutting edge (pun intended) hairdos!

The fact that SFT had an on call medical consultant just goes to show the disparity between that period of storytelling as opposed to many of today's daytime dramas in regard to attention to details. While attention to detail was the aim back then, some of today's plot holes on Y&R are so wide, one can drive a 16 wheeler through them!